See No Evil
by fitzefitcher
Summary: A paladin of the holy light learns from the example of two children that true friendship, along with other things, is blind. -Completed-
1. To Speak

_This is set before the third war, a couple years before Thrall breaks out and pretty much destroys every internment camp in sight. Maybe like two or three._

_Also, I'm not entirely sure when goblins starting selling their stuff to other races, but it was probably early on. Their shops are freaking everywhere in Warcraft 3, lol. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. I'm just estimating._

_Enjoy, and let me know what you think._

**See No Evil**

_1: To Speak_

"Make sure she doesn't leave your sight," the rather stern-looking priest said. "This one tends to wander."

"Yes, Father William," the paladin replied mechanically. The old priest regarded him with subtle annoyance, and the child that clung to his robes looked up at him with timid curiosity.

Joseph Wetmore was beginning to regret volunteering for this. The Church of Holy Light had started a program meant to educate children of the church's orphanage about the light. For a couple days, a paladin or priest of the church would take a child around with them, performing various duties or teaching them the basic idea of what the Holy Light was. At first, the paladin thought this a good idea- he believed the light would give something to have faith in when the world was already so cruel to them. Unfortunately, when he signed up for said program, he did not foresee the events that took place just afterwards.

A friend of his- a soldier employed to guard the internment camp nearby- had fallen terribly ill. It was not so terrible that he wouldn't survive (he was already getting better), but without him, the camp would be too short of guards. Apparently whatever had gotten him was going around. (It wasn't surprising with how filthy the camps were.) So Joseph, out of the goodness of his heart, volunteered to take his place, forgetting completely what he had volunteered to do for the church, until that morning, when Father William showed up at his quarters in the abbey with the child in tow.

Said child was not blinking. (Her gaze was starting to drift elsewhere, at that space one stares at when one isn't staring at anything at all.)

He liked children, really, but this was… inconvenient.

"I assume you have something planned for your outing?" the priest cut into his thoughts.

"Ah- yes, yes. I have something all planned out for today," he lied through his teeth. He hoped William wouldn't notice. He was an awful liar. Father William quirked an eyebrow in suspicion, but otherwise said nothing.

"Very well, then," the priest stated stoically. "Take care."

"Light be with you, Father," Joseph called after him as he walked away. (Father William rolled his eyes at this.) The child looked after him nervously, then put her eyes back on the paladin.

She was small, but lithe, appearing more like the child of a fairy or nymph rather than a human. Her eyes were a bright, nervous yellow, and her skin was pale and had an almost otherworldly glow to it. She still, however, had all the rosiness of a newborn; her cheeks, lips, ears, and hands were all tinted a soft, glowing pink. Her hair was short and messy, but not dirty, appearing to be a dark, rusted blonde. Her bangs frequently fell in front of her face, and she fixed them just as frequently with her tiny, slender hands. Her clothes appeared very worn but clean; a simple cotton shirt and pant with little green shoes was all she wore. The shoes were probably new and in relatively good shape; the girl probably cared for them religiously (as religiously as a six-year-old was capable of, anyway).

The paladin knelt down on one knee, and looked her in the eye to show that he meant no harm. The girl looked as easily startled as a rabbit.

"Hello, little one," he tried to say gently.

"…h…hello," she replied softly. She tried not to make direct eye contact.

"Do you have a name, little one?" he asked.

"…Elpis," she said. He almost quirked an eyebrow at this. How appropriate it was for her to be named after a holy virtue, and after 'hope' at that.

"Do you have a last name, Elpis?" She cocked her head to the side for a moment, puzzled, and then understood what he had asked and shook her head. "Do you mind if I call you 'Ellie?'" She shook her head again. "How do you feel about getting some ice cream?" Her eyes lit up, and he smiled. Wonderful creatures, goblins- cheap and greedy they may be, but they came up with some pretty amazing stuff.

---

About an hour later, he and the child were heading towards the stables of Lordaeron city, ice cream in hand. Joseph had spent the morning attempting to teach his ward about the principles of loyalty and kindness, but felt as if none of his words were getting through to the child. He would say something to her, but she would always be looking in the other direction, or she'd be looking at him but he got the feeling that she wasn't _really_ looking at him. Perhaps she was shy- after all, so far she only talked to answer his questions, and even then it was only one or two words. Perhaps if he tried a bit harder…

"Where are you from, little one?" he asked gently. She turned and looked at him curiously as she licked her ice cream cone. She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, where did you live before you came to Lordaeron?" She shrugged her shoulders again, and he felt a little bad about bringing it up. He tried to change the subject.

"Do you know where we are headed?" She shook her head. "We are going to an internment camp. Do you know what that is?" She nodded, and ended up getting a bit of ice cream on her chin. She didn't seem to mind, though. "Good. Just think of it as a field trip." Her eyes lit up at those words. "But don't tell Father William or anyone else, alright?"

"Why?" she asked.

"Because we don't want the other children to get jealous, do we?" he lied. "Not everybody gets to see an orc in person, you know." She nodded vigorously at this, trying to appear serious but grinning excitedly each and every time she did. (The paladin realized that he was probably going straight to hell for this.)

They eventually reached the stables, and Joseph retrieved his horse, a chestnut brown mare. Elpis looked up at the creature as she finished off her ice cream, but her eyes weren't particularly focused on anything. (Perhaps they were focused on something he couldn't see, but he didn't really want to think about that.)

"Ellie, have you ever ridden on a horse before?"

---

A couple hours later, Joseph and the child arrived at the Lordaeron internment camp. Almost immediately upon nearing it, he noticed the mud that had formed was seeping through the front gate and cringed. He really shouldn't have been surprised; it rained all of yesterday and the day before. But still. The guards waved him in, and the front gate opened. He rode in and tried to keep a good distance between himself and the fences keeping in the orcs. (He also tried not to cringe at the screeching sound the gate made as it closed.) Elpis looked at the orcs inquisitively. A few looked back, but most tried not to.

"Why are they so sad?" she asked, pointing at them for emphasis.

"It isn't polite to point, sweetheart," he said without really thinking. Then he went over what she'd said in his head. "That's very kind of you to ask, Ellie, but you need not waste your compassion on the likes of _them_." He made sure they heard him.

"Why?"

"Because they're _orcs_, little one. They're barbarians." The paladin remembered too well the First and Second wars to think of them as much else, but the child wasn't convinced.

"…what's 'compassion' mean?"

"It means being kind to those less fortunate than you; something those monsters don't deserve." (The child thought vaguely of earlier, how he had said everyone should be kind to one another, but kept her mouth closed.)

He dismounted and led his horse to one of the stable stalls, then carefully picked up Elpis off the horse and placed her on his hip, choosing to carry her rather than let her touch the filthy floor of the stables. She didn't seem to have a problem with it.

"Joseph, you're here," someone said amiably. He turned, recognizing said voice.

"Louis. How are you?"

"Great. Poor John, though, huh?"

"How is he?"

"Should be well enough by tomorrow. Is she yours, by the way?"

"Ah, no. She's from the orphanage." He explained the situation, and the soldier showed him where he could safely keep the child until they could leave.

It was a small, sparse room close to where some of the soldiers slept. It was probably used as a dining hall at some point, but it appeared to have been neglected for several years. There was a wooden table and a few wooden chairs, but that's all it had. There was also a window that looked directly onto the prisoners' quarters (which would explain why it wasn't used that often).

He placed Elpis at the table, along with some scraps of paper and some pens and ink.

"Elpis," he began, directly addressing her. "I need you to stay here for a little while. I'll come back for you later, alright?"

"Alright," she replied softly.

---

She stayed there about two hours after he left.

She'd managed to keep herself occupied by scribbling on the scraps of paper she'd been given, but eventually (after doodling thoroughly on both sides of every piece and getting spots of ink all over her fingers) she grew bored. Boredom wasn't particularly agonizing for her, but it did lead to some rather strange situations. Like when she made Father William mad when she'd wandered into his quarters at around three in the morning because a dream had woken her up half an hour before. Or when she wandered into the woods at around noon, and didn't come back until nearly dusk with a stray dog in tow (Matron wouldn't let her out of her sight for weeks after that). Or another time when she went into the woods, and she found a person with green skin and dark hair setting up a campfire (but she wasn't supposed to tell anyone that- mister greenskin said they'd get in trouble and bad people would take him away if she did, so didn't tell anyone, not even her favorite toys, her shoes).

She stared out at the window, but there weren't any clouds (the whole sky was a drab grey) to watch or people to watch, so she grew even more bored. She looked back to the scraps of paper hopefully, trying to find any more room to scribble. She couldn't, and made a small, displeased grunt. She looked out the window again, and saw that a small child (bigger than her, but still small) had moved into her line of sight.

She blinked.

The child's skin was a faded lime green, much different from her pale but rosy peach. He had a tuft of dark hair near the crown of his head, but that was all the hair he had. Perhaps the rest was cut off- shaved off, even. She didn't know for sure, he was too far away. Perhaps she should take a closer look?

She thought about what Joseph had said, and gave the drab, dull room one last look.

Well, she wouldn't be gone long, anyway.

She started to head for the door, but thought better and headed towards the open window instead. (The room was ground level, so it couldn't be that hard.) After grabbing a chair and dragging it to the window, she climbed on top of it and used it as leverage to climb out the window. Her feet hit the ground with a relatively dull 'plop.' Upon seeing how muddy said ground was, she decided that her shoes would be better off on the windowsill, where they wouldn't get any dirtier. (The process of removing the mud that had gotten on there would begin later when it dried and was easier to scrape off.)

She turned, and saw that the boy was still sitting in the mud. She quietly made her way over to him, trudging through the mud, her pale feet and rosy toes slowly getting darker and darker from the soaked earth. The sensation was rather pleasant, really- feeling the dirt squish between her toes. She started to watch her feet and the footsteps she made rather than what was in front of her and very nearly ran into him. She stopped just short of him, however.

"What'cha doing?" she asked finally. He whipped around to face her (as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have), but did not make to get up from his spot.

He had a small piercing, she noticed. It was a tiny clay peg in the lobe of his right ear, and she thought it intriguing. This little green boy had dark, but warm orange eyes (they were too bright to be brown) and a large (to her standards anyway- still tiny by orc standards) canine on the right side of his mouth. The left appeared to be missing. (She disregarded his filthy clothes. Hers weren't much better.)

He mumbled something, looking away.

"What?" she asked again, curious.

"I'm making a house." She blinked, curious piqued.

"…can I help?"

He turned to face her, completely dumbstruck. Then he nodded, jerking his head suddenly (probably thinking that he'd be punished if he didn't).

Elpis was overjoyed.

---

"Kali, look at what your son is doing."

The orc turned to face her mate but otherwise didn't move.

"Yes?" she replied in her soft alto. "What is it?" The child on her lap looked over her mother's shoulder inquisitively (toddler was more accurate; the child wasn't much older than three).

"Come look," he persisted, beckoning her with a wave of his massive hand. Kali sighed, but put the child on her hip as she got up and moved towards the entrance of the building (she couldn't bring herself to call it her home even though she knew that that's exactly what it was, because there was nothing for her to go back to). She peered out cautiously, not sure what to expect- it could've been a guard scolding her child, or even worse, hurting him. (She suspected it was the first one- the guards knew better than to mess with any child of hers.)

She gawked.

Her son, Ourruk, was playing with a human child. More specifically, he was instructing her on the finer points of building a house of mud, from what she could hear. And from the look of it, the human child was listening very intently to what he had to say. The toddler on her hip, Caleb, found this very intriguing; she had started to grope the air in the general direction of her brother. She struggled to say "Ourruk" and said "Ruke" instead. Apparently her mate found this rather funny, because his other hand was being used to cover a very wry smile.

"If only all humans were like this," he said mock-wistfully, very nearly laughing into his palm. Kali cracked a smile.

"Poor child probably got lost," she said. The orcs that weren't entirely lethargic glared at them sleepily and she remembered what the child was. What she, herself, was. "The guards will come looking for her, I'd imagine." She moved towards the doorway, but her mate stopped her.

"Let them play a little longer," he advised. "Perhaps they will learn something from it."


	2. To Hear

_2: To Hear_

"You're doing it wrong!"

Elpis looked up for the third time in the last two minutes, confused as to what she did wrong this time.

"It's not round enough," Ourruk (for that's what the boy's name was) said. The girl blinked.

"Houses are square-shaped," she stated plainly.

"No, they're circle-shaped," he said. He patted his own mound of earth for example. "See?" (The fact that it was very difficult to make a square-shaped mound of mud was left unsaid.)

"But…" she began. She pointed feebly at the buildings around them. "They're square-shaped."

"Those aren't houses," he said, mildly offended though he wasn't entirely sure why. "They're supposed to be circle-shaped, like this." He slapped another handful of mud onto the promising 'house.' Elpis cocked her head to the side slightly.

"I don't know anyone who lives in a circle-shaped house," she almost murmured. The boy chose not to hear this and instead began shaping her vaguely square-shaped (the corners kept oozing and morphing) mound.

"Like this, see?" he persisted. She watched his hands intently, gaze slowly moving upward towards his face.

"You're missing a tooth," she said offhandedly. He grinned proudly.

"Yep," he replied. "Mama says another one will grow in."

"I lost a tooth, too," she said, wiping her hand on her pants. She used her now relatively clean hand to pull back the side of her mouth. Her left canine was missing. "See?" Ourruk's brow furrowed.

"Your teeth and fangs are really small. How do you eat?" A drop of water fell onto her mound with a dull 'plip.' And another. And another. Soon, it was drizzling and quickly moving into a downpour. She jumped up, splashing mud everywhere in the process.

"I have to get my shoes," she said quickly, running to the window where she had left them before he could reply. She tried to wipe the mud off her other hand as she ran. She scooped up the shoes and ran back to the boy right as it turned into a tempest, and he grabbed her hand and ran back to where his family was. Although his family seemed glad to see him, the other orcs did not appreciate his dripping clothes or the human whelp he had dragged with him, and made their displeasure known.

"Boy, what do you think you're doing, bringing _that_ in here?" one of them began, a belligerent, grayed one. Elpis seemed to acknowledge that they were talking about her despite being unable to understand Orcish and looked down.

"It's just a child," the boy's father scolded. "She doesn't know any better." She looked up at him curiously (hopefully), yellow eyes bright with interest.

"Child or no, she's still one of _them_."

"And human or no, she's still a child," his mother said reproachfully. "She's barely old enough to walk on her own, let alone be capable of harming you. Or are you scared that you would be overpowered by a mere child?" Her words were only subtly vicious; there was just enough tone to express the barely veiled, acidic threat.

He backed down rather quickly. Ourruk's father smirked behind his hand. (Kali was both relieved and disappointed at this; the old one didn't have enough spirit left in him to argue- the lethargy had taken care of that.)

"What is your name, little one?" Ourruk's mother asked in Common, looking directly at the odd human girl-child. She wasn't gentle, but she wasn't abrasive, either.

"…Elpis," she replied, suddenly shy in the face of an unknown adult. She clutched at her shoes nervously, holding them to her chest.

"How ever did you get here, Elpis?" Her accent rather intrigued the small, who now watched her moving lips with eerie, wonder-struck eyes.

"I climbed out a window," she replied. Kali nearly sighed in exasperation.

"Where are your parents, girl?" she asked, rubbing her temples with one hand.

"…Dunno," she said quietly. "Father William says they died in the war against the horde." Another particularly belligerent orc scoffed.

"Look around you, human, you're surrounded by horde," he spat. Elpis cocked her head to the side. Kali went to say something but the boy's father waved a hand and she stopped.

"No I'm not," she stated simply. "Father William said the horde was all monsters. You're not monsters. You're… you're not even scary." She sounded offended at the very thought. The boy's father snorted and the old one glared at him before continuing.

"Did Father William tell you what we are, human?" he taunted.

"…people?" she guessed, faltering slightly. (It was somewhat frustrating for her because she knew that the paladin had called them something earlier- she just couldn't remember what.)

"We're _orcs_, human- the very bane of your kind," Elpis just looked confused now. (From the way the paladin described them, she expected something more reptilian- or at least something more boar-like.)

"Joseph said orcs are scary, though," she said stubbornly. "You're not scary, you're just a jerk." Ourruk nodded vigorously in agreement, at least for the second part. His father found this hilarious, apparently, because now he was snickering not-so-quietly.

"Well," Kali began, breaking the silence that ensued. (Or rather, what would have been silence if her mate, De'mos had stopped snickering, which he hadn't.) "If you're done harassing this little girl, you may keep your mouth shut for the remainder of the time she is here. Or, if you can't, I'd be happy to shut it for you." She moved her attention back to the human in question, then to her son.

"Ourruk, the rain has stopped. Why don't you take your friend outside?" The boy grinned widely, gunning for the doorway with Elpis in tow. The girl didn't expect it and didn't fight back, stumbling as she was dragged away so abruptly.

Needless to say, Kali won the argument (and skirmish) that followed.

---

After a short while, the orc joined her son and his new companion outside. Surprisingly, the rain hadn't started up again, despite the clouds looming overhead and the moody, fickle nature of summer storms. They had resumed building their mud village, and during that time, she managed to coax the girl into both parting with her shoes (which now sat on a relatively solid patch of mud nearby) and telling her exactly why she was at the internment camp in the first place.

After listening to the girl's rambling, she decided that she didn't like whoever this 'Joseph Wetmore' was. She was also amazed at how the girl somehow managed to either be innocent enough or dense enough to be unaffected by the paladin's extremely biased opinions. Not that she, herself, had anything nice to say about humans.

She did manage to convince the girl that they were indeed orcs, however.

"But… why would Joseph say that orcs were monsters?" It rather unnerved her how genuinely confused the child was. "You're not a monster." She wasn't entirely sure how to even go about explaining what had caused the first and second wars, plus the wars themselves; the girl truly didn't know anything (she suspected it had something to do with her upbringing or lack thereof).

"We aren't monsters now, but I suppose for a time, we were," she began. "When we first arrived on Azeroth, we were under the control of a demon, so I'd imagine we looked terrifying, especially to your kind at the time, and especially to Joseph, who was probably only a little older than you are now." Her son was unusually quiet, and had taken to molding the girl's 'house' while she listened. (She suspected that he was ashamed, but she didn't want to think about that just yet.)

Elpis failed to grasp the concept that the leaders of her new friend's people weren't the best people, nor did they have the best intentions. She understood just enough to know that the orcs were taken advantage of, and came to the conclusion that the humans (although justified in their reaction to the invasion) were stupid and stubborn and unfair to think of her friend and his family as monsters, when to her they clearly weren't. (She didn't take into account the embittered, grayed orcs that disliked her so.)

"But…" she persisted. "But you're not monsters _now_."

"To your friend and most of your kind, we still are," Kali replied. "Our green skin and claws and fangs scare them. We look like demons to them."

"But… we look the same," Elpis said softly, trailing off. The boy's mother raised an eyebrow.

"How so, little one?"

"We both have two hands to hold and two feet to stand on," the girl began. "And two eyes to see, two ears to hear, and a nose in the middle of our faces." She was pointing to each body part as she said them. (She was actually reciting something of a poem that Matron had invented to prevent the children from teasing each other based on appearance. It didn't work, but at least she had tried.) "We both have fingers and arms to grab and toes and legs to walk and a mouth to speak, and…"

"…And what, child?"

"A heart that beats inside us," The girl looked embarrassed as she said this. The orc just had to smile at this (whether it was at the girl's naivety or profound simplicity, she wasn't sure).

---

Joseph was not having a good day.

The first part of the day, he was stressed out because he had no idea where he could put the girl while he stood guard in place of his friend. The next part, he was bored out of his skull. He was glad he didn't have to break up any fights between the prisoners, but the orcs were so painfully boring to watch. All they did was mope around, the ungrateful bastards. They should have been leaping for joy that they ended up here and not dead, like they _deserved_.

And now, he was panicking.

Elpis was not in the room he left her in, nor was she in any adjacent rooms of the fortress-turned-prison.

And as he checked and rechecked every part of the fortress, the more it reinforced the fear that she somehow was in the prisoners' quarters.

It really irritated him that Louis wasn't as nearly as concerned about this as he should've been.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much, Joey," he said in that aggravatingly calm tone of his. "These guys wouldn't hurt a fly. Most of them aren't, ah… aren't all _there_, if you know what I mean."

"You fail to remember that 'these guys' are green-skinned _monsters_ who would like nothing more than to kill any innocent can get their hands on," Joseph spat. Louis looked decidedly more concerned now. (His brow furrowed, at least.)

"I don't know about that, Joey. These people aren't as bad as you make them out to be." The paladin spun about and faced his companion, furious.

"These 'people' _destroyed_ Stormwind, Louis! How could they be anything else?!"

"Have you even spoken to one, Joseph?" Louis asked darkly as they made their way to the pens (that's all they were- pens like the ones used for cattle).

"It would be beneath me to even _consider_ it," Joseph hissed. He vaguely wondered how Louis even got this job.

"Well, you're going to have to, jackass, 'cause I'm not helping you while you're like this," Louis snapped before he stormed off.

Joseph very nearly screamed.

---

"What's that on your neck, Elpis?"

The girl looked up from the nearly completed village, perplexed, and placed a hand on the back of her neck. She felt a small, smooth, round something, and recognized it as a bead.

"It's a rosary," she said, removing the item by pulling it over her head. The tiny beads were a simple white, with a large, reddish brown bead every five small ones. A tiny clay cross with a single ring wrapped around each of its four evenly-lengthed segments dangled from a small strand of beads stemming from the main string.

The boy looked confused.

"Prayer beads?" Elpis suggested hopefully.

"Oh," Ourruk said. "Those aren't prayer beads."

"Yes they are," Elpis said.

"No they're not," Ourruk replied stubbornly. "It doesn't have an ankh or any bones. They're not prayer beads." Elpis looked rather concerned when he said bone but did not comment on it.

"A what?"

"You don't know what an ankh is?" he exclaimed incredulously.

"You didn't know what a rosary was," she muttered defensively. He chose not to hear this.

"I'll be right back," he said over her, scrambling to get up. "I'm going to get an ankh." He darted towards the building where he and his family slept. He chose to ignore the fact that if his mother knew what he was doing, she'd gut him on the spot. (His mother went for a walk, apparently.) He looked around quickly, and upon seeing that all or most of his brethren were asleep or something similar, he went to the corner where they had hidden the ankh. He wasn't allowed to touch it usually (it was a present from one of his father's troll friends- his father said that the troll was a witch doctor, and that the beads, when read a certain way, said "As a snake sheds its skin, so shall you your earthly vessel," whatever that meant), but he figured it was okay, since Elpis didn't know what it was and therefore couldn't use it (yet).

He felt around the worn, wooden floorboards for a certain indent in between two of them, and upon finding it, lifted the floorboards as quietly as he could. There was a small space between the floorboards and the foundation of the building where his parents and the other orcs had hidden what they could from the guards (old shaman relics from 'before,' herbs and reagents in case someone got sick, candles, and blankets, most of which a particularly friendly guard had smuggled in whenever he had the chance). He went through the pile very carefully, being sure to put each item back in its place to make it look as if he'd never been there. He removed the prayer beads as quietly as he could, which was a feat because the beads were supposed to clack together and make noise (it both attracted and distracted the spirits). He laid the beads beside the opening, and carefully put the boards back in place. Then he gently (as gently as a seven-year-old was capable of) picked up the ankh and went back outside.

Elpis was sitting in the mud, rosary in hand, muttering to herself. Every once in a while her hands would glow gold and spark. Her yellow eyes were out of focus and quite eerie.

"What are you doing?"

She blinked, and looked at him, brought back to earth.

"I'm practicing," she said simply. "Father William told me to practice but I keep forgetting."

"Practicing what?" Ourruk was genuinely curious now.

"Using the Holy Light," she replied. "I'm not really good at it. I'm really good at the other kind but Father William doesn't like it when I use it."

"Lemme try," he demanded, holding his hand out. Elpis gave him the rosary without a second thought. He held it in one balled hand and absentmindedly counted the beads with his thumb as they passed through his fingers. The beads felt comforting and safe, and filled him with a gentle presence he was barely aware of.

"Just concentrate on the Light and it will come to you- that's what Matron says."

"I know what I'm doing!" he snapped. A bolt of light no longer than a finger shot through the air between them with an electric pulse. It rather unnerved the orc that the bolt felt as if it were a part of him that lashed out and receded back.

"Wow, you're really good at it," Elpis said with a mix of awe and envy. "I can't even do that yet. You should be a paladin when you grow up."

"I'm going to be a warrior when I grow up, just like my dad!" he exclaimed proudly. (That or a witch doctor or a wereworgen. Maybe both.)

"I wanna be an elf ranger," she replied hopefully. "Or a dragon. I haven't decided yet." Ourruk nodded seriously- there were many advantages to being a dragon when you grew up. He suddenly remembered the ankh in his other hand.

"_These_ are what prayer beads look like," he said matter-of-factly, shoving the ankh into her hands. She held up the beads and examined them curiously. The center bead- a simple cross that had a loop for the top segment- was an 'ankh,' as the child had called it. It was a cream-colored clay one, with a red, squarish bead on either side (they looked suspiciously like bone). Following the red beads were most definitely the rib bones of some kind of animal. As if he knew what she was about to ask, Ourruk said "The bones are snake ribs, I think. That's what Papa said."

"…and the red beads?"

"Bone. Papa wouldn't tell me what it was from, though." Following the snake ribs were more small stained red beads, this time meticulously carved into a smooth, spherical shape, three on each side. And finally, there was the canine tooth of some kind of animal (probably a dog or wolf) and one final red bead on either side. She lifted up one side higher than the other so that she could better examine the tooth, and the bones clacked together noisily. (The sound vaguely reminded her of marbles.) As she held the beads and ran her gaze across the tiny, carved-in runes on the snake bone, she noted that an odd sort of pressure she hadn't even been aware of was lifted, and she felt an odd pulling coming from all directions. It wasn't unpleasant, just odd. She also felt several distinct presences- one was most definitely the Holy Light, judging by its gentle feel and warmth, and another was Light's opposite, the entity that she couldn't find a name for that had a much deeper but equally as gentle grasp on her. There were at least six other presences, and despite the fact that she could now feel their feather-light whispering, she could not tell if they were malevolent or benign. (They did not tell her why, just that they required the use of her earthly vessel, despite it being smaller and weaker than they would've liked.)

"Now, try again," Ourruk said over the whispers. His voice now seemed loud enough to rattle her bones compared to the whispers. She now very clearly felt his being there and it was overwhelming. She looked at him and for a second she thought she saw a black wolf pup.

"What?" she murmured breathily. Her own voice no longer sounded human to her ears- it sounded like the chirp of a small bird rather than the chirp of a small girl.

"Try doing what you were doing earlier," he said, sounding distinctly wolfish to her. There was a pause before she realized what he'd said.

"…oh," she replied a moment later, having trouble finding herself in the sound. "…oh…okay." The light came to her without her asking, along with the softest one of the six presences. She looked down at their village and in the split second before she recognized what she was looking at, a bolt of light about the same length and width of her arm struck at the house of mud. (As the bolt dispersed and returned to her body, the softest of the six presences crept in with it. It did not identify itself but nestled within the presence of the Holy Light rather than its other, so she took that as a good sign.)

"See how much _better_ you did using real prayer beads?" Ourruk exclaimed proudly. (She could've sworn she saw a tail wagging.)

"I did just fine with the rosary," she muttered, disgruntled.

"Yeah, but these are better," he said simply. In all honestly, he felt just the tiniest smidge of envy because no matter what he did with the beads, he couldn't get a reaction (he did not have the ability to speak with the elements as the older orcs did- or if he did, they refused to speak with him, still furious about Gul'dan's deal with the burning legion). "Can I have these?" he asked suddenly, holding up the rosary. The beads clinked and clacked together pleasantly, and the presence he was barely aware of filled him with a warm glow.

"Sure," Elpis replied. (There were tons of the things around the church- surely they wouldn't miss just one.) She yawned. The sound echoed through her being, and she remembered she was holding the ankh. She went to give it back to the boy, but he pushed it back into her hands.

"You keep it," he said. His hands on the beads only increased the reverberation of his voice, but somehow she felt safe in the sound, because it overpowered the whispers. Then she realized what he said.

"Wait, really?" she asked, surprised.

"Yes," he persisted. "Take it." She started to tear up. (It was honestly the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her.)

"Thank you…" she managed to say. Ourruk's eyes went wide.

"Hide it," he hissed, shoving her shoes at her. "There's someone coming, hide it." He begrudgingly stuck his hand and the rosary into the mud, and she shoved the ankh into one of her shoes. (The world finally muted.)


	3. To See

_3: To See_

Kali chose not to ask why her son stuck his hands into the mud so suddenly (or why his eyes went wide like someone trying to hard to keep a straight face). Rolling her eyes, she said "Elpis, your ah… your guardian is looking for you." The girl question (not for the first time that day) looked confused.

"Guardian?"

"Joseph is looking for you."

"Oh." Clutching her shoes in one hand, she carefully stood up and wiped her free hand on her pants, switched hands, and wiped the other one on her pants (it didn't particularly do anything however because now her clothes were downright filthy). Kali jerked her head to the head, motioning for Elpis to follow. The girl trotted to catch up, then followed obediently. Ourruk waited until they were a good ways away before getting up. He looked mournfully at the now muddied rosary as he lifted it from the earth. Well, he could clean it next time it rained, he supposed, and wiped off what mud he could before shoving it in his pocket and running to catch up with them.

His mother and the girl were more than halfway up the courtyard by the time he did.

"We'll discuss what you were hiding later, Ourruk," his mother said (in Orcish) without missing a beat. He groaned.

The guard they were approaching (one of the few sympathetic ones) laughed.

"Getting in trouble, are we?" he teased, grinning from beneath his curly, blond hair. "What do we have here?" he asked playfully upon seeing Elpis. She sidestepped and hid behind Kali's leg, shyly peeking out from behind it.

"This is the girl I was talking about," the woman said. "Is she who you're looking for, Jayson?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? You're my friend. Call me Louis," the guard said with mock-hurt. The constant grinning ruined whatever effect it was supposed to have. The woman smiled and shook her head. "Anyway, yes, I believe that's her. Elpis, can you come here please?" Elpis bit her bottom lip but timidly approached him just the same.

"Are you alright, sweetie?" She nodded tersely. Louis let out a sigh of relief.

"Good. Joey has been tearing up the place looking for you, and I'd hate to see him if he saw you were hurt. Light, I'd never hear the end of it." He was chuckling as he said this. He put on a ridiculous voice that apparently was supposed to be Joseph.

"'It was those damn greenskins, I just know it!'" Kali snorted. "Poor guy's head is so far up his ass, he can't see past his own shit." The children gasped. Louis laughed nervously. "Uh, pardon my language. Just a little agitated is all."

"Why?" the girl asked, yawning. Her eyes were starting to get that glazed-over look that happens when one is very sleepy (which was understandable in her case- it was nearly evening and she had missed her nap).

"Well, y'see, I got into an argument with Joey earlier," he explained sheepishly. "Normally he's a nice guy, but he can be so pig-headed sometimes." Elpis yawned again, then so did Ourruk.

"Ourruk, why don't you head back?" his mother said, picking up the girl and straddling her on her hip. The girl sagged against the boy's mother appreciatively, slinging her arms over the woman's shoulders and using her shoulder as a pillow. The boy started to groan but his mother gave him a stern look so he headed back, grumbling. The girl waved feebly at him, and he waved back, knowing full well that there was slim chance he'd see her ever again.

---

To say that the paladin was at the end of his robe would be a massive understatement.

Father William would have his hide for this. He hadn't even had the girl for a whole day, and he'd already lost her. The priest _clearly_ wasn't kidding when he said the child 'tended to wander.' Light, why didn't he listen to him? He shuddered to think of what could've happened to Elpis. What if she wandered out of the keep? Or worse, into the prisoner's camp?

He ran around the base two more times before he even _considered_ going down there. It took him another three to convince himself to go.

So when he finally forced himself to go through the gate that led to the hellhole of a living space occupied by the orcs and saw Louis and a she-orc waiting there, he nearly shat a brick.

The she-orc was holding what had to be a human child, and Louis was smirking. (He had the strangest urge to punch the guy when he saw it.)

"Louis-" he started. "Where did you-"

"She was playing with my son when I found her," the she-orc said in very clear Common. Joseph did a double-take, and she rolled her surprisingly warm, brown eyes (he always remembered orcs having glowing red eyes that came off as cold and murderous). "There is a reason your language is called 'Common,' human. Don't act as if your kind is the only one capable of learning it." Louis snorted. The noise stirred the child, who looked up sleepily. The orc brushed the girl's hair out of her eyes, and the girl blinked several times as she did so. She recognized Joseph and went back to sleep.

Joseph was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that orcs were capable of being motherly.

The she-orc lifted the child from her hip and passed her to the paladin, despite the paladin being not quite there and the child whining in protest of being moved.

"You should watch your ward more carefully," she scolded. "She tends to wander." Joseph nodded without really knowing that he had done so. The woman sighed and started to walk away.

"Don't we have something to say, Joey?" Louis teased obnoxiously. It was then that the paladin had a realization.

"Thank you," he called after her. She merely waved a hand and kept going.

"Jerkface," Elpis murmured under her breath, still technically asleep. She clutched at her green shoes more tightly, dreaming of her newfound friend and the next time she would visit. (Or perhaps he would visit her, she hoped. Perhaps Father William and Joseph would realize that they were people and not demons, and they could play together without old men and old grudges yelling at them to stop. Perhaps she would be a shaman when she grew up and him a paladin, and finally everyone would realize that they weren't so different, that they were never different at all.)

"See," Louis teased. "Was that so hard?"

Joseph glared at his friend exasperatedly, and the girl called 'hope' continued to dream.


End file.
